Máiría Cahill (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am raising an issue of great importance today because I was contacted directly by victims yesterday and this morning regarding a story printed yesterday by Allison Morris in the Irish News. I am calling for an urgent debate on the matter. The story states that the IRA broke into Special Branch headquarters in 2001 and stole thousands of documents, which it decoded. It discovered its commander in north Belfast was an informer and that certain information was known to intelligence services in advance of the Shankill bomb. I know the identity of this man but I will not name him here today. The news is all the more shocking because it demonstrates the republican movement concealed this information for 15 years - since 2001 - while all the time highlighting collusion within the loyalist community.

Two children were murdered in the Shankill bombing, along with seven other innocent people and an IRA man. All those families deserve the truth. In addition, while the IRA commander was ordering murder and mayhem from 1991 to 2001, 68 people were murdered in north Belfast. The British were also running intelligence agents in the Shankill area and the majority of those murdered were innocent people. Serious questions need to be asked. I did not hear one statement from anyone within Sinn Féin or the main Unionist parties yesterday. Furthermore, this information shows that the IRA knew since 2001 that Denis Donaldson was an informer, yet he continued his position as a senior Sinn Féin member working in Stormont right up until 2005. Why would Sinn Féin allow an intelligence agent to continue to act as the public face of its offices while knowing this information?